AP CM's Call to Centre for Relief on Laterite Mining Lease Applications

Vijayawada: Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has urged the Centre to provide relief to hundreds of applicants affected by recent changes in the classification of laterite mineral deposits.

The new policy has stalled mining lease approvals and could cause financial losses and legal disputes, Naidu said in a letter to Union mines minister Kishan Reddy. He sought a saving clause in the Centre’s recent order that mandates laterite with 20 per cent or more aluminium content be treated as bauxite, rather than as a minor mineral.

The CM highlighted the difficulties being faced by Andhra Pradesh due to the revised classification and said the decision had effectively brought the mining lease process in the state to a standstill.

The state government, he said, has temporarily kept in abeyance 402 mining lease applications that were earlier being processed under the minor mineral category. These included 19 Letter of Intent applications, 113 applications relating to government land, 255 concerning forest land and 15 about patta land.

The chief minister said the applicants had spent crores under the earlier rules on application fees, land purchases and obtaining forest clearances. When minerals such as mica, quartz, feldspar and barytes were reclassified from minor to major minerals in the past, the Centre had provided a saving clause to protect under-process applications.

Seeking a similar treatment for laterite, Naidu requested the Centre to allow the 402 pending applications to be processed under the old rules and grant them a two-year window for completing the process.

He stated that such a relaxation would prevent financial hardship for applicants, avoid potential litigation and ensure uninterrupted supply of raw materials to cement, iron ore and road construction industries, thereby safeguarding employment and industrial activity in the state.